Traditional Workflows: Limitations and Challenges
The manual approach to patent drafting and prosecution remains a labor-intensive process that poses significant challenges for patent attorneys and their firms. Traditional methods are include several limitations:
- Time-consuming manual research: Attorneys spend countless hours searching through databases, prior art references, and technical documentation to ensure comprehensive coverage. This research phase alone can consume days or weeks of valuable time.
- Repetitive technical writing: The need to maintain consistent terminology and describe complex technical concepts across lengthy applications leads to tedious writing tasks. Patent attorneys often find themselves rewriting similar descriptions multiple times across different applications.
- Potential for human error: The complex nature of patent applications, combined with fatigue from extensive manual work, increases the risk of avoidable mistakes.
- Significant administrative overhead: Managing document versions, coordinating reviews, and handling communications between inventors, attorneys, and patent offices creates substantial administrative burden. This overhead reduces the time available for core legal analysis and strategic work.
AI Patent Tools - the story so far
As the use of AI in patent law grows, so does the number of AI tools available to help attorneys streamline their work. Below is a list of some of the top AI tools used by patent attorneys today. Each tool offers distinct capabilities, from patent searches to drafting assistance, analytics, and legal research.
- Solve Intelligence: Solve Intelligence is a company specializing in AI-powered tools to streamline the patenting process. By leveraging AI, Solve helps with all stages of the patenting process, from drafting and invention disclosure creation to responding to office actions, aiming to reduce costs and time associated with the traditional patenting workflow.
- Lex Machina: Lex Machina is an AI-powered legal analytics platform that transforms legal data into actionable insights, particularly valuable for patent litigation and intellectual property law.
- Relativity: Relativity is a leading provider of e-discovery and data management solutions, offering AI-powered tools to streamline document review and case analysis.
- vLex: vLex's Vincent AI is a powerful legal research tool that accesses over 1 billion documents across 110+ countries. It helps lawyers quickly answer legal questions, analyze documents, and compare laws across jurisdictions.
- Clearbrief: Clearbrief is an AI-powered tool designed to streamline legal writing and enhance the accuracy of legal arguments. Integrated directly into Microsoft Word, it allows lawyers to quickly find and insert relevant facts from discovery documents, while generating hyperlinked timelines, exhibits, and a Table of Authorities.
- PatSnap: PatSnap is a platform that focuses on intellectual property (IP) and research and development (R&D) intelligence. It helps organizations streamline patent search, prior art analysis, and innovation processes by leveraging advanced AI, including its proprietary large language model (LLM).
- Innography: Innography, part of Clarivate, is an AI-driven platform for IP management, providing tools for patent search, portfolio analysis, and competitor monitoring.
- Cipher: Cipher is an AI-powered intellectual property analytics platform developed by Aistemos, designed to help organizations make strategic patent decisions. Using machine learning, Cipher enables patent owners and legal teams to classify and analyze large patent portfolios, offering insights into technology landscapes and competitor activities.
- ContractPodAi: ContractPodAi is a leading AI-driven contract management platform designed to streamline the entire contract lifecycle. It offers tools for drafting, negotiation, review, and analysis of contracts, leveraging AI and natural language processing to automate time-consuming tasks.
- Patentics: Patentics is an AI-driven patent search and analytics tool that simplifies complex patent research tasks. It utilizes advanced semantic search algorithms to make patent information more accessible, enabling users to efficiently classify, analyze, and evaluate patent portfolios.
AI-powered platforms like Solve Intelligence's Patent Copilot already provide a number of functionalities that allow users to realise huge benefits over the traditional approach to drafting and prosecution including in areas such as:
Patent Drafting
Solve’s Patent Drafting Copilot has advanced AI drafting capabilities, including:
- accurate description and claim drafting
- multi-jurisdictional compliance
- editing and iterating with AI
- interacting with AI chat across various documents
Figure Generation and Image Handling
The Patent Drafting Copilot has several image-based functionalities, including:
- Figure generation with AI
- AI element label generation
- Using AI to carry changes to the figures through to the description
- Multi-format image and figure analysis using AI
Document Analysis and Review
Comprehensive document analysis features within our Patent Copilots offer:
- Ability to interact with AI chat to discuss and compare documents
- AI generated questions on input invention disclosures
- Prior Art analysis and review with respect to drafted claims
- AI-assisted review functionality/ error-checking
AI Customizability
Our Patent Drafting Copilot allows users to customise the output of the AI, by providing:
- Custom template integration
- Custom AI sections
- Workflow personalization options
- AI instruction/prompt libraries
Current Advantages of using AI
Building on these comprehensive AI capabilities, patent attorneys are already experiencing significant measurable benefits:
- Increased Efficiency: Early adopters report 40-60% productivity gains through streamlined workflows. Using AI simplifies drafting routine sections like the Technical Field and Background while integrating figure generation and ensuring consistent output, saving hours per draft.
- Overcoming Writer’s Block: Attorneys can use our Patent Drafting Copilot early in the process to brainstorm alternative embodiments, variations, and figure ideas based on brief invention disclosures. This helps them quickly expand on initial concepts.
- Enhanced Quality: By automating routine tasks, AI allows attorneys to focus on complex drafting areas and client interactions. This improves claim alignment with IP strategy and enhances draft reviews, leading to higher-quality applications.
- Flexible Integration: Our Patent Drafting Copilot adapts to any workflow, enabling attorneys to draft in their style or meet specific client preferences. Attorneys control the AI’s role, adjusting its use to fit their needs and evolving client demands.
AI Patent Tools: 2025 and Beyond
In 2025, AI patent tools are expected to continue improving and adding further functionalities and features. These advancements will further streamline patent workflows, enabling even greater efficiency, accuracy, and scalability for attorneys and law firms. As AI tools become more sophisticated and user-friendly, adoption is expected to increase across the industry. Firms that may have previously been hesitant to implement AI are likely to embrace these tools as they recognize their value in managing larger workloads, reducing costs, and improving service quality. This widespread adoption will drive innovation within the legal tech space, fostering a more competitive and dynamic environment for patent practitioners.
We expect AI tools for patent attorneys to progress in a number of areas in 2025, including:
- High-quality figure generation and editing capabilities using AI
- High-quality AI claim drafting and amendments based on multiple prior art documents
- Improved claim mapping against multiple prior art documents
- Improved Freedom-To-Operate (FTO) analysis against multiple patent portfolios
- AI supporting more jurisdictions across the world
- Advanced predictive analytics integration, particularly in prosecution
These advancements and others anticipated for AI patent tools in 2025 will elevate their utility for patent attorneys to entirely new levels. These innovations, and general increases in overall output quality promise to make AI tools even more indispensable, freeing patent attorneys to focus on high-level and high-value tasks, such as managing their clients’ overall IP strategy.
As the capabilities of tools in the patent industry continue to redefine what’s possible, the integration of AI into patent practice is no longer a forward-thinking option—it’s a necessity for those looking to lead in an increasingly competitive landscape.
Disclaimer: Information current as of December 2024, reflecting the latest advancements in AI-assisted patent drafting technologies.
